[Letters from the Abyss, "LITTLE BOXES] Little boxes In the archives Little boxes made by Hollinger Little boxes in the archives Little boxes all the same There's a gray one and a gray one And a gray one and a gray one And they're all made out of cardboard And they all are acid free [TELEVISION, "FRICTION"] CHARLIE BENNETT: You are listening to WREK Atlanta, and this is Lost in the Gray Boxes. Excuse me, Lost in the Stacks, the Research Library Rock and Roll Radio Show. I'm Charlie Bennett in the studio with Abby, Matthew, Wendy, Fred, and Ameet. Each week on Lost in the Stacks, we pick a theme and then use it to create a mix of music and library talk. Whichever you're here for, we hope you dig it. AMEET DOSHI: That's right, Charlie. Today, our show is called "Community-Driven Archives." WENDY HAGENMAIER: Knock, knock. FRED RASCOE Who's there? CHARLIE BENNETT: Oh, god. WENDY HAGENMAIER: Olive. FRED RASCOE: Olive who? WENDY HAGENMAIER: "Olive" a good archivist knock-knock joke. AMEET DOSHI: Oh, I have one. CHARLIE BENNETT: What is happening? AMEET DOSHI: Knock, knock? FRED RASCOE: Who's there? AMEET DOSHI: Orange. FRED RASCOE: Orange who? AMEET DOSHI: "Orange" you glad you had an archivist organize your family history so your grandkids how much time you spent coming up with archivist knock-knock jokes? CHARLIE BENNETT: Yeah, it says in the script here we're supposed to pause for laughter. FRED RASCOE: There's no pause needed. I went to it instantly. CHARLIE BENNETT: If you, our listeners, want to join the conversation, the hashtag for the show is #LIS404 for Lost in the Stacks, Episode 404. Feel free to tweet your thoughts, questions, or archives-related knock-knock jokes. Oh yes, please do that with that hashtag. WENDY HAGENMAIER: Our songs today are about passing down memories, making the ordinary sublime, and family. Community archives are a documented, preserved, and curated reminder of all groups who live in that community, and a reminder that we're all connected. So let's start the show with a track called "Family" by Fatima, right here on Lost in the Stacks. [FATIMA, "FAMILY"] AMEET DOSHI: "Family" by Fatima, right here on Lost in the Stacks. Our guest today is Chaitra Powell. She's the African-American Collections and Outreach Archivist at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Chaitra, welcome to the show. CHAITRA POWELL: Hey. Hi. Thanks for having me. AMEET DOSHI: And just so everyone knows, Chaitra is calling in from North Carolina, and it's working. CHARLIE BENNETT: Oh, dude. Why'd you say that? Jinxed us. CHARLIE BENNETT: This is our second live phone interview of the year, and I guess New Year's is going to be terrible. AMEET DOSHI: Well, I just want to point out that it's #lits404. CHARLIE BENNETT: 404 not found? AMEET DOSHI: Yeah. But hey, no worries. CHARLIE BENNETT: Chaitra, we're really excited to have you on the show. CHAITRA POWELL: Thank you. AMEET DOSHI: Thought it might be useful to just give our listeners a broad overview of the scope of the collections at the archives there. As I understand it, there's something called The Southern Historical Collection. Do you want to talk a little bit about that, and then segue into the work that you do? CHAITRA POWELL: So the Southern Historical Collection is a manuscript collection here at UNC libraries. We have over 6,000 manuscript collections, and over 20 million items. It's a huge resource for people that are studying the South. We have great strengths in social movements, antebellum records, businesses, a lot of policy and social movement records. So it's an important collection, and it's one of five big collections here at Wilson Special Collections library on campus at UNC Chapel Hill. So that's the collection, and it's been around since 1930. And my role in it is working with African-American materials. And that's why I get to do great work in community-driven collecting and African-American families documentation. WENDY HAGENMAIER: So, can you tell us, what is the African-American Family Documentation Initiative, and how did that get started? CHAITRA POWELL: I actually have to give great credit to my predecessor, Holly Smith, who's currently at Spelman Archives. She was here before me. And her, along with her colleagues, Biff Hollingsworth and Tim West, were really interested in how archives from families can really get people starting to think about what their history is. What a primary source is-- it's like we all have families, all of our families have a story, and it's a good way to get people interested in what archives are about. And really, to understand the African-American experience through the lens of family. So it's essentially a collecting initiative, so we have some targeted outreach. We have some great success in Raleigh collecting Black families there. And one family tells another, and then we get this critical mass of materials here. Since I've been here, I've also been interested in a custodial model, and thinking about how can we support families that want to maintain their own collections, or giving them as much support as they need for potentially donating materials to the SHC? So it's a wide variety of options that families have, but we just want them to know that their stories are important, and their stuff certainly needs to be preserved. CHARLIE BENNETT: Chaitra, can you give us some examples of what kind of materials are family documentation? CHAITRA POWELL: Absolutely. And this is true for all kinds of families. But it's things like photographs. Scrapbooks. Sometimes it's family bibles that have birth dates and death dates on them. We love AV material. Home movies are great records of families. Getting into more born digital stuff like hard drives and emails. Anything that documents your relationships. And the thing that's really cool about family archives is that they're usually really well appraised. Families-- they're growing. They need all their space in their house. So the things that they have are usually and genuinely the most important things. So it's great to hear people talk about what they've kept over the years, and think about how it can be organized and saved in an archival way. CHARLIE BENNETT: We have one archivist in the studio right now. And when you said the phrase post-custodial, she started nodding like that was a really good thing. WENDY HAGENMAIER: I was like, speak. Yes. CHARLIE BENNETT: So you got to talk a little bit about that. CHAITRA POWELL: I'm sorry, I dipped into the nomenclature. But post-custodial just means that an institution isn't the only place that archives can live. It's a way of working with collections where you don't mandate that materials come to the library. Materials can live in community archives. They can live in homes. They can live in community centers. And so, it's really a great way to decentralize the institution, and really give people full ownership of the stories in their care. So it's been around for a while. I didn't invent it. But it's certainly a strategy that I'm proud to employ. AMEET DOSHI: The community-driven nature of this archive makes me think that it's probably also a community oriented in how it's used. When I think of archives, I often think of scholars that are maybe working on a major research project, or a book. But in this instance, I can imagine a huge variety of uses. What kind of uses are you seeing from the North Carolina community? CHAITRA POWELL: It's really exciting. Our grant work is based on our work with these four pilot communities. And they all have really unique reasons and motivations for starting these archival projects. And so, some of the really interesting ones I've seen have been in coming out of the historically Black towns and settlements. So a place like Eatonville, Florida, surrounded by Orlando. And they really need the documentation of their land and the significance of their space to get historic designation and protect themselves from the suburban sprawl. So that's much different than a traditional scholar who's writing a book. They need the stuff to protect their space. We work with another group in Eastern Kentucky, and it's a Black community that was part of a mining community. It was a mining town. And when the mines closed, everybody moved. But they remember with very fond memories this time and place. And so, when they're doing their oral histories and their gathering their photographs, it's all about remembering community and coming together. And so they host these family reunions all over the country. And the archives are the ways that they remember together. And then, just a third one is in places like-- another example from historically Black towns, Hobson City, which is another place where it was an important Black town just outside of Anniston, Alabama. And they are wanting to remember that there were Black firefighters. Black mayors. And even though the town isn't as vibrant as it used to be, they want people to know that they were here and this is what they did. And so it's a lot of commemoration in those spaces. So they're really activating archives in ways that make the most sense for them. WENDY HAGENMAIER: We're speaking with Chaitra Powell from the University of North Carolina about community-driven archiving. And we'll be back with more after a music set. ABBY: File this set under CS21. R6. [JOAN ARMATRADING, "MY FAMILY"] [COCTEAU TWINS, "HALF-GIFTS"] (SINGING) [Vocalizing] MATTHEW: You just heard "Half-Gifts" by the Cocteau Twins. Before that was "My Family" by John Armatrading. Those were songs about the importance of family, intimacy, and connection. [TELEVISION, "FRICTION"] CHARLIE BENNETT: I hate to get on Matthew's case, but I think, Fred, we need to fix that real quick. Joan Armatrading. FRED RASCOE: Joan Armatrading. CHARLIE BENNETT: Joan. It's totally fine. Also, I can take this moment to say, Fred, this is a pretty chilled out show, man. Are there guitars later? FRED RASCOE: We have family and community. We're getting mellow. CHARLIE BENNETT: I don't like this. I don't like this at all. Today on Lost in the Stacks, we're talking with Chaitra Powell about community-driven archives. Now, I know what it's like to do document recovery or to take a collection of academic papers and sort it through. But what are the challenges that are unique to community-driven archives? CHAITRA POWELL: There are a lot of challenges, especially with the brand of it that we're doing here at UNC. So I think, for me, especially coming from-- I worked in community archives in Los Angeles. And being in the community and sharing archival procedures with communities is great, and I love it. But being here at an institution-- and we're working with communities that are far away from us in Kentucky and Texas and Florida. And so trying to meet people, get to know them, figure out what their priorities are, and provide some support can certainly be a strain on capacity for us here in the library. It also allows for some stagnation where, if you're not seeing people every day, it's hard to make sure that the work keeps moving along. So maintaining some enthusiasm with our partners can be challenging. It's also a little tricky in that the Southern Historical Collection is a longstanding custodial archive. This is a grant-funded project, and so when we're talking about sustainability, it can be challenging to explain that this is something that we're trying, and we're not sure if we'll be able to do it in the long term. So those are some of the challenges we've encountered so far. CHARLIE BENNETT: So your collection area is the Southeast? The-- CHAITRA POWELL: That's right. CHARLIE BENNETT: Do you go to all these places? Do you have help in various communities that are farther than a day's drive away? CHAITRA POWELL: We do, and we also have a team. So there's a five-member team that's grant-funded. And so, between the five of us, we try to make it to all of our communities a few times a year. And the way we set up the partnerships is that there are community liaisons, a person that we talk with more regularly, that is local to the community and can reflect their needs back to us. So that's one way we address the distance. WENDY HAGENMAIER: I'm curious, how did you identify these partners? Did the archive have a relationship with them to begin with before the grant period? CHAITRA POWELL: Yeah, absolutely. So a lot of them, the relationship started way before the grant. And it has been really the strength of our network and the strength of our collections. As I was mentioning earlier, for most of the communities we work with, we have some representation of their story here in the collection. So it's been nice to be able to actually meet real people and talk about their stories and a new way of archiving them. So it's from the collection. It's from our scholars. The faculty here have relationships with people. And for a couple of our projects, it just worked out for us to add them into this project. So it's all kind of a web of connections that allowed them to be our pilot partners. WENDY HAGENMAIER: We hear that there may be backpacks involved in these partnerships. Can you tell us more about the backpacks? CHAITRA POWELL: Yeah, these are really exciting. We've gotten so much amazing press around these Archivists in a Backpack prototypes. So we were just kind of brainstorming back in 2015, 2016 about places. The real inspiration were places that were ravaged by natural disasters. I'm thinking about in Princeville or Mound Bayou, where the floodwaters rise. And we wonder what happens to the archives when these things hit the towns. And so we were like, floating containers, portable storage. Like, what about a backpack? What if there's a backpack that people can use and has everything that they need to preserve their stories? So we have a couple iterations, and we are also iterating definitely early on in the process. We rolled them out in San Antonio in April, and those are essentially oral history backpacks. So there's a recorder in there. Some question cards, some thank you cards. A field notebook. Just all kinds of supplies that you would need to just start getting stories recorded. And then, we also have a bag that's more of a scanning kit for history harvest where folks can bring stuff out, have it scanned, and potentially take it back with them so they don't have to feel like they're giving it up. But this is another way that it's being preserved. So yeah, there's backpacks, and they're available for all our partners. We're really excited about it. FRED RASCOE: Well, you are listening to Lost in the Stacks. And we're going to be back with more about community archives and backpacks. And maybe even archivists in a base camp tent or something. CHARLIE BENNETT: You want them to climb Mount Everest? Is that what you're doing? FRED RASCOE: Maybe. CHARLIE BENNETT: Oxygen tanks? FRED RASCOE: My imagination is running wild, but we're going to get back more into it on the left side of the hour. MICHELE CASTO: This is Michele Casto from the DC Punk Archive at DC Public Libraries. You're listening to Lost in the Stacks on WREK, Atlanta. [RITES OF SPRING, "DRINK DEEP"] (SINGING) Drink deep It's just a taste And it might not come this way again CHARLIE BENNETT: Our show today is called "Community-Driven Archives." Now, I have a long running joke about archivists being, quote unquote, "troublemakers." A joke which is based in this truth. Archivists make the decisions that create archives, and those decisions decide whether archives are tools of liberation or tools of oppression. Whether they contain unflinching truths or collective denial. Whether they provide the story of what happened to the citizens, or the story which those in control wish to tell. So you tell me, am I joking when I call them troublemakers or am I understating the case? File this set under BD336.T46. [PRESIDENTS OF THE USA, "BACK PORCH"] Ladies and gentlemen I'd like to introduce to you The internationally known Raashan Ahmad MATTHEW: You just heard "Back Porch" by the Presidents of the USA. Before that was "Flying in the Wind" by Phonics and Raashan Ahmad. Those were songs about how the ordinary can be sublime. WENDY HAGENMAIER: Our show today is called "Community-Driven Archives," and helping unpack the topic is Chaitra Powell from the University of North Carolina. So, Chaitra, we're curious. We were talking during the break about-- can you tell us a little bit about some of the surprising things that you found in family archives? Either the family archives that y'all are taking custody of, or the things that are staying out in the community? What has surprised you? CHAITRA POWELL: I was thinking about this question. I think the really cool thing that I've seen in our collections here-- last fall, we organized a home movie day from the collection. And in Alan Loewenstein papers, there's footage of grace Kelly's wedding in Monaco. I was like, wow. I was surprised that that was in these papers. So that's cool. You never know what people will bring. For some of the communities that we work with, I've seen some really amazing things surfaced. In San Antonio we were able to see these beautiful African-American brides from the 1920s and '30s. Their photographs of them in their dresses was really beautiful to see. Other families surfaced information about a community member who built a bridge, I guess before there was regulations on these things. This man was a Mason and a structural engineer, and he built a bridge. So that was pretty awesome. And it was a part of San Antonio history that I don't think was really well known. So it's always surprising and it's always important. So we're happy to see family material in the collection and in the community. CHARLIE BENNETT: Now, you're training people about how to keep archives and what to bring to you all. How do you make sure that there's still room for you to be surprised by materials? CHAITRA POWELL: I think I try to bring some level of archival training and appraisal and trying to think, is this rare? Is this unique? But I try not to put too much of the research value element on it. I think that there are other types of values that communities can articulate, oftentimes better than institutions can. A social justice value. A cathartic value. A family togetherness, love value that can be put on something. And even if it is a Jet magazine which is digitized. But because of who had it and how it was preserved, it means something more to them, then of course, that should be in their archive. And so, I always try to balance that when I'm out there with communities. CHARLIE BENNETT: Is this what you expected working with archives to be for you? Did you expect to see these kind of things, and have these kind of emotions? CHAITRA POWELL: No, I had no idea. When I was growing up, I didn't even know archivist was a profession. And even as I was getting into library school and thinking about what an archive could be, I always just thought it was a very procedural kind of job where you're just putting papers in folders. It wasn't until I started working with the HistoryMakers in Chicago and Mayme Clayton collection in LA that I could really see the transformative power of archives, and that there is a lane to be in where you can bring more people into the work. It's not just for certain people and certain stories. It really is something for everyone to be a part of. WENDY HAGENMAIER: I'm curious, has working with these families and these communities changed the way you think about your own family archive? CHAITRA POWELL: Yeah. I've always been a sentimental person, and it makes me think about my dad a lot. He was one of those people who recorded-- he had a huge album collection, and he would put the albums on tapes so he could listen to them in his car. And as he was making the tapes, he'd always have these little annotations about what was happening in his life. And so, I love that he did that. And I think there was some kind of subliminal thing happening in me where I knew that this was important to document. And so, to see my dad's archives and to have children of my own and feeling the need to record all of the important moments of their lives in ways that other people can understand it, and combines photos and notes and these really cool books that I hope to share with them when they're older. So it definitely makes me take my family records much more seriously with the background and the work that I'm doing now. CHARLIE BENNETT: Do you see other people connecting like that when, say, you give them the backpack? Or you bring them in and say, here's what we're going to keep. Here's what we're going to do. What kind of reaction do people have when you tell them what's going to happen? What's going to be important? CHAITRA POWELL: I think people are genuinely excited. The idea-- we ride the wave of UNC as much as we can. So when we go places and it's like, Chapel Hill is here, we want to know what you think. We want to know what stories you want to tell. And we want to give you these resources to do them. And then you can decide, now that we've recorded this history or scanned these things, do you want them to be at UNC? We can facilitate that. Do you want to maintain them in your home? We can work on that. And so I think people really appreciate being able to control what happens to their stuff. One thing that's been so encouraging as we've been working with people is that they understand the value of their stuff. You don't have to convince them that archives are important. It's just the learning curve of what to do with these different formats. That seems to be the most beneficial advice that we give to people. WENDY HAGENMAIER: Are you finding a lot of partners wanting to keep things both in place, and then give you copies? Is there a lot of digitization going on so that the originals are staying in place? CHAITRA POWELL: Yeah. And actually, I'm thinking that we're halfway through our grant, but I'm thinking that's the way that the university can sustainably support community archives-- is being the home for born-digital or digitized records, and just adapting our gift agreements to make sure that there's shared ownership. And that communities have control over those things, even if they're preserved here on our institutional servers. So that's our default setting-- is that we can digitize stuff and we can put it on portable media for you, or we can put it in our institutional repository. We can make it public or we can keep it private. It really just depends on what the community prefers. CHARLIE BENNETT: Chaitra, we've run out of time. But I would be remiss if I didn't get you on the record. White gloves, or nah? CHAITRA POWELL: I'm going to go with nah on that. CHARLIE BENNETT: We've been speaking with Chaitra Powell, African-American Collections and Outreach Activist at UNC Chapel Hill. Thanks so much for being on the show. CHAITRA POWELL: Thank you. This was great. Thanks for having me. WENDY HAGENMAIER: File this set under PS 3608.87229F36. [SUFJAN STEVENS, "HEIRLOOM"] [SUDAN ARCHIVES, "NONT FOR SALE"] MATTHEW: You just heard "Nont for Sale" by Sudan Archives. Before that was "Heirloom" by Sufjan Stevens. Those were songs about treating our memories with respect. [TELEVISION, "FRICTION"] AMEET DOSHI: Today's show is called "Community-Driven Archives." WENDY HAGENMAIER: In the words of Chaitra Powell, as I wrote them down and mashed them all together, community-driven archives are their home movies, with surprising snippets of Grace Kelly's wedding photographs of an African-American bride in the 1920s, records of a Black man who built a bridge, evidence of land ownership, documentation of a mining community, a father's annotations about music on a tape. They're coming together in activation, a tangible manifestation of social justice and of love. CHARLIE BENNETT: You really should be running this show, Wendy. Did you know that? Roll the credits. And hey, Abby, make it sound like trouble. ABBY: OK. I'll try. [PUNK SONG PLAYING] ABBY: Lost in the Stacks is a collaboration between WREK Atlanta and the Georgia Tech Library, produced by Ameet Doshi, Charlie Bennett, Wendy Hagenmaier, and Fred Rascoe. FRED RASCOE: Abby was our engineer today, and also our live interview phone wrangler. And the show was brought to you by-- brought to you in part by-- (it's rented) -- The Collective, a library conference designed to create collaborations between next generation academic librarians, archivists, and library staff. CHARLIE BENNETT: You can find out more at thelibrarycollective.org, where you can see the program for next year's conference, register, or plan your travel. AMEET DOSHI: Legal counsel along with (SINGING) a box full of letters I think you might like to read-- CHARLIE BENNETT: Are you having a stroke? AMEET DOSHI: --were provided by the Burrus Intellectual Property Law Group in Atlanta, Georgia. It's Wilco, man. CHARLIE BENNETT: Are you having a stroke? WENDY HAGENMAIER: Special thanks to Chaitra for being on the show. To community-minded archivists everywhere. And thanks, as always, to each and every one of you for listening. CHARLIE BENNETT: You can find us online at lostinthestacks.org, and you can subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, plenty of other places we don't about. FRED RASCOE: Next week on Lost in the Stacks, we'll be talking about AI in libraries. Alexa, what do you think? Wait, don't answer that. AMEET DOSHI: It's time for our last song today, and we close with a song reminding us what happens when we don't actively preserve and document the important mementos of our family history. We'll lose a good thing. This is "You'll Lose a Good Thing" by Barbara Lynn right here on Lost in the Stacks. Have a great weekend, everybody. [BARBARA LYNN, "YOU'LL LOSE A GOOD THING"] CHARLIE BENNETT: Wendy, I like to check in with you after an archive show. Are you happy with that? Anything stick out for you that you wanted to talk about? WENDY HAGENMAIER: I am super happy with that. And I'm really interested-- hearing Chaitra talk about her dad's music collection and the annotations he would make about his tapes, whether anybody else can think of records from your own personal life or your family's life that stick in your head. FRED RASCOE: I don't about records or what it says about family, but I do remember, recently I found my old tape collection, and I found a mix tape that I made for myself for my own personal enjoyment on actual cassette. I'm old enough to remember listening to cassette music. CHARLIE BENNETT: Oh, what kind of stuff was on that one, Fred? FRED RASCOE: Oh, man. It was like, Aerosmith and Led Zeppelin. And there was an Echo the Bunnymen song. This was me at age 14. Lots of classic rock and lots of guitar, an occasional jangly British something or other. CHARLIE BENNETT: Sounds like you at 14 knew what was up. FRED RASCOE: I have a 14-year-old now, and he is really into Eminem and Imagine Dragons, and he thinks Bohemian Rhapsody is the greatest song ever written. WENDY HAGENMAIER: I think that tape is going in your family archive. FRED RASCOE: I need to make another one of his music taste. CHARLIE BENNETT: Ameet, got something stashed in the attic in a box? AMEET DOSHI: Yeah, I have an image-- a mental image stacked in my imaginary box. And the image is of my brother throwing out a box of my albums. Doing me a favor. CHARLIE BENNETT: That's right. I heard about this. AMEET DOSHI: And he showed me the parabolic arc as he tossed this box of rare LPs into the dumpster below his apartment with a smile on his face, saying, I saved you some trouble. And it made a cool sound when it hit the dumpster. So I imagine that in my mental archive every night. CHARLIE BENNETT: So we should take a moment to let that settle. That was terrible, Amar. You shouldn't have done that. WENDY HAGENMAIER: It's appraisal. He was doing appraisal for you. [LAUGHTER] FRED RASCOE: He saw it as the equivalent of libraries getting copies of "National Geographic." He was just like, this just has got to go. We can't keep these. CHARLIE BENNETT: I am not going to answer this question, because my answers all involve the fire pit and stuff that I found from my notebooks from college. So, with that-- unless, Abby, you want to say something about your personal archive? ABBY: I can't really think of anything. CHARLIE BENNETT: You don't have to worry about it yet. ABBY: Most everything I've saved in my life is digital, so not as many physical things. I mean, I have a lot of pictures saved from traveling, but that's probably the most substantial thing I can really think of. CHARLIE BENNETT: There we go. We just recorded the cold open for another show in the near future about how digital archives are not enough. [MUSIC PLAYING]